


The In-between

by Scorpiofreak



Category: American McGee's Alice, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Friendship, Plays partially on concepts from The Lovely Bones, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 21:53:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3585372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scorpiofreak/pseuds/Scorpiofreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just because Jack and Alice didn't always get along, doesn't mean they had to be the same. There was nothing wrong with having a little company while waiting to be reunited with your beloved sibling. All their destinies were now intertwined after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The In-between

**Author's Note:**

> AN: I got this idea after re-watching the movie "The Lovely Bones" and I decided to write it out and see if anything would come of it. Lizzie doesn't get nearly enough love, so I came up with this idea of Jack's sister and Elizabeth meeting up in this sort of "in-between" place. I named Jack's sister, Rosie, after Julchen M. Liddell's fanfics just because I enjoy reading her stories and the name really grew on me. I hope she doesn't mind that I borrowed it!
> 
> This is sort of a companion piece to Winter Wonderland. I wasn't getting a lot of feedback on FanFiction, so I decided to try my luck here.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians or Alice: Madness Returns. I just play with the crossover.

_On the floating, ship less oceans_   
_I did all my best to smile_   
_Till your singing eyes and fingers_   
_Drew me loving to your isle_   
_And you sang, "Sail to me_   
_Sail to me, let me enfold you"_   
_Here I am, here I am_   
_Waiting to hold you_

~O~

Rosie never remembered how she came to be in the place she was now.

Occasionally, when her mind drifted off without her realizing it, she remembered her last hours alive, but not the very moment of her actual passing.

Compared to the other countless, painful ways she could've gone out, Rosie figured she should feel grateful that she died the way she did. Old age, surrounded by her loving children, grandchildren, and even her new, firstborn great-grandchild - a true and rare blessing that Rosie would always hold dear to her still warm heart.

It was an easy death. It was just like falling asleep, floating backwards into blissful warmth, suddenly oblivious to it all, and waking up in a place she did, and did not, recognize. To her relatively limited understanding, that wasn't everybody's death experience, just the really lucky ones. The ones who didn't suffer the unfortunate fate of dying violently.

She woke up to the faces of her long dead parents and husband, smiling brightly down at her with welcoming smiles bright enough to out shine the sun, each one looking younger and healthier than they did when they died. Her mother was a few years away from being middle-aged, with lightly graying hair and deep laugh lines, but still looking as vibrant and beautiful as ever. Her father was similar. He stood tall and proud, able to walk confidently without the aid of the dark wood cane he was forced to use when early aging hit him hard in his late thirties. They both smiled in that loving, familiar way they used to before the tragic loss of their firstborn. Rosie had long forgotten what their true smiles had looked like.

And her husband, his young, handsome face void of all signs of sickness and decay.

Her parents both died of old age like her, and only days apart from each other. It had been an inconsolable heartbreak for Rosie to lose both of her parents so closely together, one that left her deeply depressed for months, but eventually, her ever-understanding husband managed to get her to see it more as a blessing than a tragedy. They were able to follow each other in death just like they did in life. A blessing that unfortunately wasn't extended to Rosie and her husband. He fell victim to sickness and passed away nearly two decades before Rosie.

It was all irrelevant now though. They greeted her with open arms.

There were other people there with them too, distant relatives that Rosie never got the chance to meet, ones that were left behind when her parents traveled to the new world years before she was born, but they welcomed her just as warmly.

It didn't take long for Rosie to realize that she was no longer an elderly woman. Her body was pulled back in time to the age she was when she married her husband, before she had her first child. She had been quite slender at that age, a pretty little thing in an average sort of way, but after having a few children, Father Time paid Rosie her dues and she grew into a plump old woman. It also didn't help that her husband had been an excellent baker.

Despite spending the last handful of her childhood years in a state of great depression and utter indifference caused by the death of her only sibling, Rosie had an overall happy life. It had really been her husband who pulled her up from the depths of her despair over that tragic event and showed her how to enjoy life again.

Rosie had never been a remarkably beautiful woman, or at least, not in her own eyes. She had been pretty, but it was more of a plain, mousey attractiveness. Much like a lot of women from her village. Rosie only ever had one suitor in her life and that had been her husband (not that it really bothered her, mind you).

When she became of marrying age, Rosie had become a rather reclusive person compared to the happy child she once was, only interacting with her parents and a few close friends. While the girls with corn-silk blonde hair were being chased by the fetching young men of the village, Rosie spent her time reading, sewing, or sitting by the very pond that made her an only child with forlorn longing. She didn't have the energy within her to deal with the complications of courting, or dwell on the lack thereof. Her parents worried for her, worried that she would never escape her seemingly endless depression and find someone to share her life with, but eventually she did when Wilhelm Bennett moved to the prospering village of Burgess in his optimistic attempt in breaking away from his overbearing family and creating a new life from scratch.

He had been charming and kind to her from their first meeting, giving her genuine compliments and going out of his way to do things for her when she needed them such as giving her free bread when she was low on money, or repairing things around her house, even though the clumsy goof was nearly as bad with a hammer as she was. The attention he gave her was flattering and he was the first person to make her truly laugh since her brother's death. In a lot of ways, he was very similar to Jackson. He had that same endearing, off-kilter silliness that always radiated off Jack in waves, and an unwavering belief in tales and myths of a world went unseen by mere human eyes.

He was a soft-hearted, understanding man when she told him about her older brother and Rosie couldn't stop herself from falling in love with him. Although at that point, she didn't even try to stop it. He was able to understand why there were times when Rosie didn't leave her house for days at a time, or why she hated Winter with an unbridled passion, or why certain things set her off in emotional fits caused by her lingering childhood trauma. He understood her demons and accepted them. Did she ever really have a chance against someone like that? From her own standpoint, Rosie's cons outweighed her pros when it came to marriage material, but Wilhelm accepted them anyways. He helped bring the light back into her heart and Rosie had been beyond happy to be reunited with him again.

At first sight, her afterlife looked like it was shaping up to be perfect, just like the good book always promised it would be...except for one thing.

Her older brother, Jackson, was nowhere to be seen.

She searched the crowd of faces, both familiar and unfamiliar, a dozen times over, but not one of them was the one she wanted to see the most.

Her parents had been expecting the question that came next when she turned to them with wide, confused eyes. They had been in her place not too long ago, asking the same question. They told Rosie with a sort of content sadness and acceptance that Jack wasn't there among them because he was not dead. He had died decades ago, but somehow he was not dead in the same sense they were. Through some great power none of them could, or would ever, fully comprehend, Jack had been reborn from the lake he had drowned in and given a life among the ancient, unseen spirits that roamed their living realm.

The news confused and upset Rosie, making her feel a variety of emotions she wasn't even aware she was still capable of conveying. She wanted to shout, she wanted to scream, she wanted to curse the heavens she now stood in for taking her brother away from her  _again_ , but above all else, she wanted to fall to her knees and sob.

It was all too bittersweet for her and it caused her mind to wage war against her heart, her needs and her wants. She  _needed_  to see her brother and she _wanted_  someone to explain why she couldn't. She was glad that Jack's life hadn't completely ended when he drowned, as strange and confusing as the facts surrounding the event may be, but Rosie had waited all her life for the day that she would finally be reunited with her beloved brother who gave up his young life to save hers. That had been her every birthday wish, every Christmas wish, and on those rare occasions, her every shooting star wish.

She wanted to feel anger, wanted to scream her frustration, but something about the new realm she stood in wouldn't let her. She felt cheated and betrayed by God, or whatever "great power" that was keeping her brother from being with his family again. Why was she being denied in such a way? Why was her afterlife denying her the one person she yearned to see the most in this world? Had she not done everything she should have during her time on earth? Had she not been the person the Lord expected her to be? Had Jack's death truly been her fault and this was her punishment? To never see Jack again?

It took her a long time to finally accept the crippling news. She couldn't even begin to guess how long it took her exactly, time seemed to now be nonexistent in her new realm, but it was still a difficult struggle nonetheless. Rosie's husband and parents tried their best to comfort her, even more so her parents who had gone through the same pain when they found out.

Rosie had been a good person during her lifetime. She had been caring, compassionate, and respectful to all who surrounded her. She went to church everyday, kept house for her family, and loved everyone close to her with all her heart, and because of that, she was allowed to follow her parents and husband to her eternal paradise, or wherever it was they wanted her to follow them to. However, as her family beckoned her to follow them into the blinding, white light shining somewhere along the horizon, Rosie backed away from them, shaking her head and pulling from their arms.

She had come to terms with her brother's situation, accepted that this was how it was going to be and there was nothing she could do to change it, but that wasn't going to keep her from getting what she wanted. She was a good person, she  _deserved_  what she wanted most, and  _nothing_  was going to tell her otherwise.

She was going to stay behind and wait for Jack.

They protested, of course, just like she knew they would, but their words fell on deaf ears. They tried to tell her that with the state Jack was in now, he wasn't going to be joining them anytime soon and that it would be best if she came with them, but Rosie had already made up her mind. There was nothing they could do, or say, to break her resolve.

It was a recently deceased's right to decide whether they wanted to move on to paradise, or stay behind in the "In-between", and Rosie had chosen to stay. She had unfinished business and it wouldn't be complete until she was with Jack again. She needed to feel his arms around her, needed to hear his carefree laugh echo through her ears, needed to tell him how sorry she was and how much she loved him. She needed to tell him how hard she worked in life to prove his sacrifice wasn't a waste.

Soon after she had made her decision, her parents and husband began to fade away, back into the light along the horizon. They couldn't stay and wait with her. They had already made their decisions long ago and had chosen to crossover. This was something Rosie had to face alone.

Once a soul has crossed-over, the only time they could ever come back to the In-between was to welcome a loved one and help guide them into the light. Rarely ever did a soul choose to stay behind like Rosie, but she knew it was something she needed to do. She wanted to be the very first person Jack saw when he finally died for good. It didn't matter that she might have to wait hundreds of years, maybe even thousands, to speak with him again. The only thing that mattered was that she was waiting for Jack. As long as she remembered that, Rosie could wait forever.

So she bid her family goodbye for the second time, promising that they would be together again before they knew it, and she soon found herself alone again.

The In-between may have been another name for purgatory in the eyes of her former beliefs, and it may have lacked the souls of her loving parents and husband, but it was the closest she could be to her former realm, which also meant it was the closest she could be to Jack. Wherever he was.

~O~

The beginning, the In-between was nothing more than an incomplete puzzle.

It was a very obscure copy of Burgess, the very center of the small village where new visitors and traders were greeted and welcomed. There were the familiar dark wood houses with gray smoke drifting out of the stone chimneys, but when Rosie peeked in through the windows, she found that the homes were all barren and empty.

Outside, she could easily pick out familiar landmarks like the three fire pits in the village square, the little dirt road that led to the next town over, the village church, the old schoolhouse, and even the pond where Jack had drowned, but it was all a very shoddy replica. There were a lot of empty, white spaces placed randomly throughout the village, as if Rosie was standing in a landscape painting that was left half-finished by its painter.

However, as time in the living world started to pass, and the longer Rosie stayed in the village, the more it started to pull itself together. The blank spots began to fill themselves in with color and depth little by little until the empty world around her eventually mirrored her old home perfectly. It captured everything, even the small things Rosie overlooked when she was alive. All of it was there, every last detail.

The only feature that was added were the windows. Small openings that people like her could look into and see glimpses of the living realm. They opened and closed randomly throughout the In-between. Time was indefinite in this new world of hers, but occasionally a window would open up somewhere that allowed her to peek into the living world. From there, she could roughly guess how much time had passed since her death.

It was after about fifty years or so in the living world when Rosie discovered she could change her appearance. When she learned how to do it, she made herself ten again. She wasn't overly excited about being thigh-high and cute as button again, but that was the last age Jack saw her as and that's how she wanted to greet him when they were finally reunited.

~O~

From the windows, she could also see Jack.

It was difficult tracking him down at first. When it came to the windows, she had trouble weeding out the useful from the useless. The useless ones looked in on the lives of people she didn't care to see, looked in on places she never cared to visit, and the useful ones, the ones that overlooked the real Burgess, never seemed to stay open long enough for Rosie to find what she was searching for.

The first time she saw him, Rosie almost didn't recognize him. His hair was impossibly white, stripped entirely of color. The warm brown eyes that both Overland siblings had inherited from their mother, were now a stunning crystal blue, but his comforting smile and carefree laugh were the same as ever. Rosie cried freely when she saw him through the window that overlooked an icy cliff in an endless desert of snow, that she would later learn was a continent called Antarctica.

Unfortunately, her brother's smile no longer reached his eyes and his laugh was rarely heard. He was invisible and alone in the world. No one could see, or hear him and he had lost all memory of his short life as Jackson Overland. He didn't even remember that he had a sister and that was indescribable pain that Rosie hoped she would never have to feel again; being forgotten by her brother, and also being a witness to his loneliness.

She tried to make up for not being able to reach out and comfort him by always watching over him, even though he wouldn't realize it, but she couldn't do that either. Like the wind he had become so fond of, he shifted from place to place without lingering in one spot for very long. Jack was constantly on the move and there weren't always windows where he was.

It was frustrating for her, but instead of pointlessly dwelling on it during those times she couldn't see him, Rosie explored her new world.

It seemed to build itself as she went along, springing up mostly trees and other foliage with the occasional stream or river. Every now and again, she would come across another village or town, but they were always empty, and no matter how far she walked through the white, she always found herself coming back to Burgess, as if she walked around the entire world.

Along with the towns, Rosie would sometimes see people.

In the beginning, she recognized them. She would stare at them and they would stare at her before a sense of recognition crossed their faces and they would smile at each other and embrace tightly while exchanging tearful words.

Rosie loved those moments more than anything, but they were always so short-lived. She would draw out their reunions as long as she could, enjoying their time together again as family, but just like she knew it was coming, they would eventually break apart and her child, grandchild, or great-grandchild would move on to join the Overland ranks in that place along the horizon, leaving behind both their former lives and Rosie.

They were always confused as to why she never went with them, why she chose to stay behind so long instead of joining her parents and husband when she first died like everybody else. With her own children and relatives, Rosie never hesitated to tell them about her vow, to not cross over until Jack was there to do it with her, but as time in the mortal world went on, she stopped recognizing the people who passed by her in the In-between. She knew she was related to them in some way or another - they were  _always_  relatives - but they were from generations that came decades after her own. They didn't even hold the same surname of Overland anymore. Her husband's family name still lived on, but Rosie's maiden name died along with Jack.

Regardless though, she saw her "distant" relatives too. They didn't recognize her of course, which didn't come as much of a surprise, especially with the later generations. Perhaps they might've heard about her in a childhood story, or in a history lesson about the founding families of Burgess, but no doubt, Rose Overland was just a name to them. In all honesty, she didn't act much different than that towards them either. When they crossed paths, Rosie acted more like a directory sign than a loving ancestor, telling them with a blank face where they should go and giving them a general idea of what to expect out of common In-between courtesy.

She didn't really mind the lack of recognition though, or the fact that her entire living-realm memory was cut down to just a single name among a dozen others on some ancient census, stored in the dusty archives of Burgess' early history. Everybody that was important to her had died and crossed over nearly a century and a half earlier. Everybody except Jack, of course.

Jack, for the most part, didn't change one bit throughout the many decades she watched him. Much like Rosie's life in the In-between, nothing remarkably big ever happened in Jack's life as a spirit. Sure, there were hard moments in his life, difficult obstacles he had to overcome, skirmishes he had to avoid, but there wasn't anything worth mentioning, in her opinion. He didn't have any life-changing experiences that shook the very foundation of his existence.

He saw the world and the beautiful places it had to offer, he learned to control his icy powers and ride the volatile winds, and he had witnessed some of the greatest events in human history, but for someone who now had all the time in the world to explore, and zero responsibilities to weigh him down, it all became somewhat repetitive after a while. Even the fact that legendary fairytale beings and creatures such as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were actually  _real_ , soon became old news after a few decades.

After an endless amount of free time spent mostly exploring, Rosie couldn't say her life in the In-between was any more spontaneous than his after nearly two centuries of it.

However, she chose to look at it as just a long transitional period. A very long, incredibly boring, transitional period. Sometimes, the lack of action in her world almost became too overwhelming, but even on her worst days, she told herself it would all be worth it in the end. Yes, her new world was bleak, lonesome, and contained very little surprise, but Rosie still refused to cross over.

It wasn't until a little over three centuries after Rosie's death that something changed significantly within her world.

On his end, several things had changed in Jack's world by that time, and all within a ridiculously short period of time. Out of the blue, he was called upon by the most famous spirits of the spirit world to join some team called the "Guardians". He faced off against the very embodiment of fear and defeated the infamous Boogeyman. He finally found a mortal that could see and believe in him. And probably the most important thing of all, he gained a new sense of family and friendship, ending his long lifetime of loneliness and isolation.

Rosie hadn't been able to see it all come together with her own eyes, but she was able to put the pieces together on her own when she looked in on the children of Burgess and heard the new whispers and hushed tales of the laughing, Winter sprite,  _Jack Frost_  - the white-haired bringer of snow days and fun times.

It warmed her heart to know Jack had finally found his place in the world, that he no longer had to feel lonely and unloved. She was incredibly grateful for all of it, even if it meant she had to wait longer to be reunited with him. He was given a second chance at life and Rosie, being the reason his first one ended so prematurely, wanted him to live it to the fullest. It was simply yet another battle against her needs and wants. She  _wanted_  to be with him again, but she  _needed_  him to be happy. He deserved his happiness more than she deserved hers.

So, Rosie continued to wait in the In-between, even as everybody passed her by and nothing ever really changed...every century, just as predictable and lonely as the last one...

Until  _she_  came along.

~O~

When Rosie had first seen  _her_ , the young woman had been sitting on the edge of the little dock that had built itself along Jack's pond some time ago.

She was looking into the same window along the water's surface that Rosie liked to use to watch Jack. It was her favorite window because it almost always showed her Jack, no matter where he was in the world. It wasn't always open, it disappeared and reappeared randomly just like all the other windows, but it was the best window she had found, by far. She thought that, maybe, it was because it was set within Jack's death site and it produced a better connection because of that. It was the only plausible explanation she could think of, but there was never any way to know for sure. Everything she knew about the In-between was from pure observation, repeated occurrences and educated guesswork.

Immediately, Rosie sensed that there was something...off, about this new visitor. She had just been wandering aimlessly through her small village, looking for newly deceased stragglers to help pass the time, when she came across her brother's pond and spotted a white figure sitting atop the sacred site.

The young woman, no older than eighteen, sat on the very edge of the dock with one bare leg tucked under her, and the other hanging off the side, her toes just barely skimming the pond's smooth surface, causing wide ripples to appear as she slowly twirled her hanging foot in small circles. She wore a pristine white nightdress with long sleeves while her dark brown hair hung loosely around her head in slight waves. In her lap there was a cluster of flowers, picked freshly from the white rose bushes that grew along the pond. She weaved the long stems together idly as she looked down at the open window inside the reflective pool.

Rosie stood frozen, almost slack-jawed, as she stared at the woman. She felt anger boil in the pit of her stomach at the sight. Before it boiled over though, Rosie was aware she was overreacting. The elderly woman side of her psyche could only express curiosity for the young woman's sudden appearance, causing her to wonder why this soul was lingering around in the In-between instead of moving on immediately like everybody else, but the childish side of her seethed at the sight of the woman sitting on the dock of Jack's pond, clearly making herself comfortable in a place she didn't belong.

The mousey-haired girl let out a displeased huff and crossed her arms tightly across her chest before practically stomping her way over to the pond with her little, freckled nose held assertively in the air.

As she drew closer, Rosie noticed something strange about the girl's nightdress through the annoyed haze that clouded her eyes. The ends of it were blackened and tattered, almost as if it was once a full-length nightgown but had been singed off up to her knees. Rosie blinked curiously at that for a few moments before shaking her head. She shouldn't let herself get distracted like that. This woman was trespassing on Jack's pond. Rosie could understand and sympathize if a confused, newly deceased stumbled across places they shouldn't while on their way to the horizon, but nobody went near Jack's pond. _Nobody_. Not while Rosie Overland was around.

Throughout the years, she had become quite protective of Jack's pond. She snapped and shooed away any souls from coming near it, even the very few souls that shared a fate similar to Jack's. To Rosie, nothing was holier than Jack's pond. She'd sooner skip buck naked across the holiest grounds in Rome in her former eighty-four year old body then let someone desecrate her brother's burial place.

Her tiny footsteps echoed loudly throughout the empty forest as she finally stepped on to the dock. The sound of her approach was obvious and hard to ignore, the woman had to have heard Rosie coming from a mile away, but she showed no outward signs that she was even aware of the girl's presence.

"Excuse me," Rosie called out to the young woman's back before letting out another huff when she didn't move. She called out again, louder this time, with a much more clipped tone of voice. " _Excuse me!_ "

The woman finally turned her head to look over her shoulder, fixing Rosie with the most stunning, clover-green stare she had ever seen in her life.

"You can't be here," Rosie declared once she snapped out of the trance the woman's stare seemed to put her under.

"Oh?" The girl replied softly. "I can't?"

"No, you can't," Rosie threw back. She barely resisted the urge to sneer childishly at her. She honestly didn't know why the young woman's presence was making her feel so agitated. Rosie just knew she didn't like seeing her sitting on top of Jack's pond.

"May I ask why?" She asked, speaking more and revealing her foreign accent.

Rosie blinked widely at her, surprised.

An  _Englishmen_? She was an Englishmen?

Rosie could barely remember the last time she heard someone speak with an English accent. She only peeked through the windows that showed her Jack, and he always stuck so close to home whenever he wasn't spreading Winter. The very idea of one actually standing in Rosie's neck of the In-between woods,  _speaking_  to her, was an oddity almost too mind-boggling to comprehend. It immediately set the woman entirely apart from the other souls Rosie's encountered throughout the centuries, who, up to that point, all had been part of the Overland family in some shape or form. So unless Rosie's great, great, so and so, underaged grandson or granddaughter married an Englishmen (because she certainly knew  _Jack_  didn't get married), who then died soon afterwards and Rosie was just hearing about it now, this meant the woman truly was a stranger in the Overland's In-between.

Which was definitely something that has never happened before.

"This- this is my brother's pond," She replied after shaking herself once again from another stupor. "I don't let anybody come on it."

"Oh, I see," The girl replied before glancing curiously around the area. "Where's your brother? Is he here also?"

At the question, Rosie's frown deepened and her arms slowly fell back at her sides as a forlorn pain clouded her eyes. "...No, he's not. He's - ah...he's..."

It was still so very difficult for her to accept Jack's condition, but it was even more difficult for her to say it out loud.

"Still alive?" The older girl finished for her.

"...Yes, he's still alive. He's still on Earth."

With a thoughtful hum, the green-eyed woman pursed her lips as she mulled over Rosie's response. Her eyes scanned over Rosie's freckled face and the brown, animal-hide dress she wore with the red trimming along the bottom before glancing back down at the window in the pond.

"Is that your brother?" She pointed towards a moving figure in the window. "The silly boy with the white hair?"

Rosie gave her a funny look before slowly inching forward a few steps. She fancied keeping her distance from this stranger. Of course, she wouldn't be in any danger if the girl turned out to be some sort of psycho, hiding behind a gentle smile, but Rosie's mistrust was too hard to ignore. It played heavily into her natural instincts, her gut-feelings, her prized woman's intuition. Since becoming an adult, she had learned to follow her instincts almost religiously. Before his death, despite being the older sibling, Jack was rarely the voice of reason. Rules, responsibilities, and common sense always flew right out the window whenever Jack found himself craving adventure, or fixing for trouble. Most of the other children in their village were right behind him too, following his every move. They idolized him more than they did any other person in Burgess, and so did Rosie, but she learned from first-hand experience to follow her brother's lead at a much more...slower pace. She was always readily willing to join in on his fun, but she was less enthusiastic about facing the consequences of some of Jack's more foolhardy ventures.

After all the whippings, the time-outs, the extra chores, and the revoked privileges that boy had received in his short lifetime as a human, you'd think he would've learned a thing or two about avoiding trouble, but of course, once Jackson got a new, ridiculous idea in that thick head of his, there was no reasoning with him. That had been entirely left to Rosie. Jack was the best older brother any little sister could ever ask for, he taught her so many things in their short time together, but the most important thing, and probably the most unintentional, was how to weed out the bad ideas from the good ones. She learned that solely by watching Jack; the master of trial and error.

She had still been a little girl though, and her desire to laugh and have fun sometimes overshadowed her cautious side. More often than not, she would be tempted by Jack into biting a piece of delicious pie that looked too hot, jumping into a rain puddle that looked too dirty, balancing on a piece of wood that looked too wobbly, or skate on ice that looked too thin...

The green-eyed, English woman didn't exactly herald trouble, or deceitfulness, but Rosie learned a long time ago to never take any chances with safety.

She came as close to the girl as she dared before craning her neck at an uncomfortable angle to catch a glimpse at the pond below, realizing with wide eyes that it was indeed Jackson in the window.

"What are you doing watching my brother?" Rosie asked, almost accusingly.

"I'm not," She replied simply. She didn't seem at all put-off by Rosie's annoyed scowl as she pointed towards another figure in the window. "I'm watching my sister."

"Your sister?" Rosie echoed, her nose scrunching up skeptically.

"Mmhm."

She leaned in again to see the window. She really wished the girl would stop being so friendly. She was making it difficult for Rosie to stay wary of her. Did the girl not realize she was trespassing in somebody else's In-between?

Nonetheless, Rosie looked into the window again, but only to become more confused when she saw another green-eyed girl.

She had seen this girl before, once, Rosie thought to herself. She couldn't be entirely sure though. Maybe...

The girl in the window looked familiar, but only in the sense that she looked like the stranger. Rosie might've seen Jack talking to her, but she couldn't remember. When there was a lot going on in Jack's life, it became difficult to track him down through the windows. They came in mere flashes, snapshots, of whatever it was Jack was doing.

Rosie tried looking a little more closely at the dark-haired girl in the blue dress and striped stockings, who was speaking almost heatedly with her brother.

Now that she knew their relations, she could see more of a resemblance. They definitely looked related, but there were notable differences in their appearances. For one thing, the deceased sister's eyes, although same in color, were nowhere near as big and piercing as the other girl's were. They were more almond-shaped and kind.

Her face was also heart-shaped, as opposed to her sister's delicate egg shape, and there was a fullness in her features that suggested she was a little thicker in body type compared to her sister's extremely petite frame. Not at all an unattractive thickness though. Nobody with that face and those eyes could ever be considered anything but stunning. The difference in weight served more as a show of good health, and perhaps a well-off lifestyle.

The most obvious difference was hair color though. The sisters were both dark brunettes, much darker than the Overland siblings had been, but the deceased sister's hair was a deep, chestnut-brown with a shorter, wavier haircut, where as her sister's long hair was so dark, it appeared almost raven black.

Rosie noted that the girl in the singed nightgown appeared almost right after the other girl appeared in Jack's world.

The cogwheels in her head churned at this new development. She looked towards the girl watching her and frowned. The girl's expression was open and understanding, almost as if she knew exactly what Rosie was thinking about, but offered up no opinions of her own. She just remained silent as she waited for the little ten-year old to do something.

It aggravated her even more, when she realized that was how the girl must've seen her as. That was probably why the girl was acting so kind and polite towards her. She was probably worried she would somehow frighten the little girl. Would she react any different if she knew that Rosie had actually died an old woman?

Valiantly, she tried to hold on to her agitated scowl, but she only ended up letting out a defeated sigh, her walls crumbling down in the wake of the young woman's unwavering politeness. Rosie could practically feel the childish notion of "mine!" draining from her short body as the older woman in her finally started to resurface again, drawing up feelings of guilt and shame for being so cross with the nonthreatening stranger.

She conjured up a funny, half-hearted smile as she decided to extend her kindness and stick her hand out in front of her.

"I'm Rosie," She said, prompting the girl to shake her hand. "Rosie Overland."

The green-eyed woman smiled warmly at her as she reached out and gently grasped Rosie's hand. She nodded her head in greeting before responding with the name -

"Elizabeth Liddell."

~O~

It took some time for Rosie to get used to being around another person again.

Elizabeth, or "Lizzie" as she preferred to be called, made it easier by just acting as normal as possible, even though the situation was anything but. She acted like things had always been this way, that their In-betweens had always been joined, and that they had always been friends. Rosie still didn't completely trust her, but the optimism she put into trying to make things work was rather admirable, she had to admit. Rosie remained wary of Lizzie for as long as she could, which incidentally, ended up not being very long at all.

Perhaps though, maybe it wasn't exactly the young woman Rosie had been so uncertain about, but rather, the new and confusing circumstances she brought along with her.

Elizabeth's sudden appearance confused her. She wasn't related to her in any way. Rosie made sure of it when they finally started talking. While Rosie grew up to have children, who then grew up to have their own children, building generations after generations, Elizabeth's bloodline almost completely ended when she died. The only remaining person left in her entire family was her sister, Alice. She had no aunts, no uncles, and no cousins when she was alive; just her mother, father, and younger sister. Elizabeth shouldn't have been able to cross paths with her. Everyone Rosie had ever encountered in the In-between had either been a direct blood relative of hers, or had been strongly connected to one, like a spouse or a close relative of a spouse.

It was truly a puzzling mystery at first, but after further thought on it, Rosie eventually came up with a half-way decent theory. She concluded that if this girl wasn't a part of her family, then the only reason why Rosie could interact with her in the In-between, was because her and her sister, this  _Alice Liddell_ , were someday  _going_  to be part of her family. Which was yet another strange and remarkable development.

There were only two reasons Rosie could think of explaining why something like this hasn't happened to her before now. The first reason being because a soul staying behind in the In-between was much rarer than Rosie originally assumed. No one connected to a person of her bloodline has ever had a deceased loved one in  _their_  family choose to stay behind in the In-between, so there's never been anyone for Rosie to run into.

And the second reason being because of Jack.

More specifically, Jack  _and_  Alice.

Now that they were both part of this guardian team, their destinies were now intertwined, and if  _they_  were now intertwined, then their loved ones waiting for them in the In-between were also now intertwined. Like one big, confusing, destiny circle.

Above all the possibilities, Rosie liked this one the best. It was like they were building a brand new generation of their own, a new generation built simultaneously from both old parts, and new parts. Jack and Alice would set down the roots with their new family outside in their unseen, spectacular spirit world, while Rosie and Lizzie fed it silently from beyond the realm, influencing it with love from their creators' past lives. And at its very core, there would be something so strange, yet so fantastic, it would change everything and produce something blindingly beautiful, yet unknown to the mortal world entirely.

Or perhaps, as another possibility, it had absolutely nothing to do with the guardians and their legendary team. Maybe their souls and destinies were now just intertwined because someday, somewhere,  _somehow_ , Jack and Alice were going to end up married and their deceased siblings were able to interact with each other because they were future sisters-in-law and a marriage didn't actually have to happen yet for them to become linked. Presumably because of the time absence in the In-between.

But again, those were just theories.

Who really knows why certain things happen in the In-between? Again, most of this was just educated guesswork.

...That last one was a really interesting thought though, she had to admit. Jack? Married? Ha ha, very funny brain. Stop thinking up nonsense. This was serious.

As silly as the idea was though, Rosie still stored it away in the back of her mind, keeping it handy for those sad times when she really needed a good laugh.

~O~

The window in the pond was always open when Lizzie was around, it seemed.

No matter where she was, or what she was doing, the window would always blink to life whenever Lizzie drew close again to Jack's pond. Rosie often wondered if she had some sort of special privilege that other souls didn't have. It made the child side of her slightly jealous at the thought of Lizzie having unlimited access to something so closely connected to Jack that she didn't, but the adult side of her couldn't imagine what such a privilege would entail.

As it were though, Lizzie always seemed to be around these days, which allowed Rosie to freely reap the pond window benefits. She was now fully accustomed to Lizzie's company and no longer felt cautious around her. Several years had passed in the living realm and the Liddell sisters had molded themselves almost flawlessly into the lives of both Overland siblings. For the most part, as Jack and Alice went on with their lives on Earth, Rosie and Lizzie became closer in the In-between. It went on like that for the longest time. They would talk about their favorite things, their homes, and their countries, almost comparing notes on the lives they used to lead as humans and their own individual experiences. They would literally talk about anything and everything that came to mind.

There were the occasional road bumps that they hit along the way, like the matter of their age difference, or the significant gap between their respective time periods (Early Colonial America and mid Victorian England), but they were always quick to find a peaceful way over them. Where Rosie had Lizzie beat in life experience and age, Lizzie matched her tenfold in book knowledge and witty sass.

However, to avoid treading along the same argumentative, love/hate road their siblings seemed so fond of traveling down, they talked about simple things in the beginning, while they were still trying to establish a friendship after Rosie decided it wouldn't be so horrible to have one. They talked about the basics; what their favorite colors were, their birthdays, what their favorite subject was in school, what their child selves wanted to be when they grew up.

When they became more comfortable with each other, they moved on to more personal subjects, like their families.

Lizzie commented once, on how funny it was to listen to a ten-year old speak so animatedly about her thirty-year old son who became the village's head doctor, or her twenty-eight year old daughter with the newborn baby girl and a pair of rambunctious twin boys, and Rosie found herself having to agree. Much like any mother, Rosie loved talking about her children more than anything, but it  _had_  to sound a little odd coming out of a child's mouth.

"Please, don't let that deter you though," Lizzie would hastily assure her. "I was only making a silly observation."

Old habits truly did die hard, and equally old souls found it difficult not to fall back into their dying roles. It just came so natural to her, as if she had never died - talking a mile a minute like an old busy-body while sitting around in a small sewing circle with what remained of her ancient group of old crows. Rosie could almost feel her body slowly morphing back into an old woman's whenever she allowed herself to get carried away like that.

It would go on like that for days before she would finally shut herself up, and when she did, she would look towards Lizzie with a sheepish smile and an apology for making their conversation so one-sided.

"They sound lovely," The older girl would always say with a soft smile.

On Lizzie's side of things, Rosie couldn't help but feel a little impressed by her family.

The members of her own family were honest, hard-working people - strong and admirable in their own right, and Rosie loved them deeply, but they didn't seem to hold as much glamour as Lizzie's did. Her's paled in comparison whenever they talked about their families. The older girl certainly wasn't boastful about it though. She once told Rosie she held deep respect for farmers and herders like the ones that made up her village, the ones who braved the unforgiving sea to travel to the new world in hopes of getting a fresh start, in hopes for freedom. It wasn't an easy journey and it wasn't an easy lifestyle, they both knew that, but Rosie still couldn't help comparing the two, especially since she herself, had never traveled further than the neighboring villages during her entire lifetime. It was the small part of Rosie that regretted never seeing more of the world, that clung so tightly to Lizzie's words.

Lizzie spoke of the behemoth, castle-like school building her father, Dean Arthur Liddell, worked at; Oxford University. A prestigious, well-respected school throughout the world, even in modern times. She also talked about how brilliant her father used to be, and how his knowledge seemed endless with the way he always attached an interesting fact behind every little thought Lizzie shared out loud. She talked about her mother, Lorina Liddell, and how wise she had been, and how strong and protective she could be when it came to her husband, who somehow always found himself feuding with jealous colleagues and mindless brutes in their community. Rosie giggled almost uncontrollably when Lizzie told her about the time her mother stood up to a sailor three times her size, scolding him until he was red in the face for using such foul language in front of her children while his buddies watched from the sidelines. She also spoke fondly of her old nanny, a buxom woman who was ten times as stubborn and daring as her mother, who had half a mind to slap the burly sailor across the mouth, instead of scolding him like Lorina.

She also talked about the night of the fire, but very vaguely. She told Rosie the bare basics of the event, such as when it happened, how it happened, and how everybody except Alice perished because of it, but the information seemed purposely non-descriptive. The whole subject of the fire had Rosie's interest piqued, especially since she could tell there was a lot Lizzie was intentionally leaving out, but she didn't want her friend to keep sharing if she was uncomfortable doing so. It was obviously still a very sore memory for her, just like Jack's death was still a sore memory for Rosie, so she left it alone.

Talk of the fire was rare though. Most of the time, she talked about her sister, Alice.

It was interesting, hearing things from an older sibling's point of view. Rosie had been many things in her long life; a mother, a grandmother, a  _great_ grandmother, a baker's wife, a town elder, a daughter, and of course, a sister, but only a little sister. She had never known what it was like being a big sister. That was perhaps one of the things she wished she had the chance to experience before dying, but Thomas and Anna Overland never gave any thought to having another child after Rosie was born. They knew what it was like to be a mother and a father to both a strapping young lad, and a sweet little girl, so they had been content. But if they had ever thought about trying for another child after their son's death, then it would've been news to Rosie. Jack was scarcely brought up in conversation under the Overland's roof after his death.

Lizzie talked about how strange Alice was as a child, and how she was always off in her own little world, playing with her many bizarre friends that nobody else could see. The In-between sounded almost like this "Wonderland" Lizzie mentioned so many times. The In-between was a replica of the living world, but it enhanced the beauty of the world and left out the ugliness. Cities were clean, pollution was non-existent, and nature was as untouched and pure as it was before man came along. Anything you could imagine, anything you could picture inside your head when you closed your eyes, became true in the In-between.

There were a few unspoken rules of course, a few limitations that they had to "live" by, like the whole process of only being able to interact with relatives, or the windows only opening temporarily, but other than that, the girls were free to do whatever they wished.

They could go anywhere they pleased, and do anything they wanted. They could go sledding on snow-covered hills in the middle of summer. They could take pleasant strolls along the very bottom of any sea. They could go dancing on the moon and among the stars. They could play hide and go seek in the rain forest. They could sleep in endless fields of their favorite flowers, enveloping themselves in the beauty and warmth of the In-between until all the pain bled from their hearts and all the guilt fluttered out of their minds. It was a perfect place where they could be free of their vices and continue to grow as women until the time came when they would finally reunite with their beloved ones and join their families in the place beyond the bright horizon.

"What do you suppose this place is, Rosie?" Lizzie once asked her while they sat on Jack's dock, reading books and playing with a deck of cards they found inside an empty house.

"You haven't figured it out yet?"

"Has anyone?"

"...No, I suppose not. I understand how it works, but I guess I still don't really know what it is."

"I don't think this place is really just  _a_  place, as in just  _one_  place, but rather a  _collection_  of places. It's not quite the great beyond, but it's not quite the living world either. Being inside of it is like having one foot inside the door, and one foot out."

"That's a good theory," Rosie remarked while shuffling the cards in her hands. She stared blankly down at the white pieces of paper and their red and black suits until she heard a soft, wistful sigh, prompting her to look over at her friend. "What's the matter?" She asked when she noticed Lizzie's suddenly somber expression.

"I was just wishing I had invested more of myself in my sister's imagination while I was alive. Perhaps then, I could've understood her better. She was such a lonely child. None of the other children ever understood her. She was always by herself...or at least, that's what it seemed like. If only I had taken the time to look, to  _believe_ , I might've been able to see him...the Easter Bunny. We all just thought he was another one of Alice's imaginary friends, that he was just a childish myth. If only I had realized that he was real..."

"Don't do that to yourself," Rosie huffed, her old lady showing again as she looked up from her cards. "It won't do you any good to dwell on things like that. I can think of about a dozen things right off the top of my head that I would've done differently if I had the chance."

Lizzie pursed her lips in thought, her eyes downcast as she looked upon the image of her sister having tea with the colorful Tooth Fairy while Rosie's brother fought off a swarm of love-struck Baby Teeth that were trying to examine his teeth.

"I think this place has a way of doing that to you," She said after a while. "It makes you think about all the things you should've done while you were alive, and all the things you should've done differently, but didn't. The In-between may be good by purgatory standards, but it's still just that, _purgatory_. We may not be paying for our sins, our possible wrong-doings, but we're still being purified. It's a side effect of staying behind, instead of following our loved ones into the horizon. We stay behind in this fantastical world with almost no limits and responsibilities, but we're left with far too much time to think."

"Were you expecting something different when you made your choice?"

"No," She sighed while staring forlornly into the window below them. "Not really."

"Then why'd you stay?"

Rosie felt a surge of panic when Lizzie's sad, clover eyes suddenly began to water, but when she reached out a hand towards her to offer her comfort, Lizzie gently shook it off.

"She was so little, so innocent," She whispered, tracing the soft features of her sister's face through the reflective pool with her eyes. "She had no way of understanding what had happened, or why it happened. All she knew was pain, fire, and loneliness. She blamed herself for what happened to us. Survivor's Guilt, the doctors called it."

Rosie blinked at her, thoughtful. "Survivor's Guilt, huh?"

"Yes," Lizzie nodded with a soft sniffle. "Poor thing. Drove herself insane because of it. And there was nobody there to save her from drowning...so to speak. Sorry. Very poor choice in words."

Rosie smiled at her. "It's fine."

"That's why I chose to stay behind," She continued while gently swinging her legs back and forth in the cool water of the pond. "I thought perhaps I could find a way to get a message to her... I needed her to know it wasn't her fault."

Rosie let out a sad sigh at that before reaching over again and gently laying her hand on top of Lizzie's.

"Believe me. She knows."

Lizzie let out another sniffle as her eyes slowly drifted shut at her friend's kind reassurance.

"Of course she does."

How was it, Rosie often wondered, that Elizabeth seemed to be more insightful when Rosie died over two centuries before her? How was it that she seemed to be more wise when Rosie was the one who led a full life? When she was the one who watched her only sibling die? When she was the one who grew to become an adult? The one who knew what it felt like to truly fall in love? The one who carried, gave birth, and raised five children?

How was it even possible, that Lizzie seemed so much older in both body, and mind?

~O~

Despite becoming fast friends, it took the two sisters a long time to finally breach the subject of their deaths.

To any newcomers, the question probably came off as sinfully rude, like asking a disfigured man how he became disfigured, or asking how much a woman weighed, but they would soon come to realize that it was a commonly asked question in the In-Between. Regardless of how they got there, they were all ultimately in the same boat, so it was just acceptable curiosity.

It was Lizzie who asked first. Rosie was unafraid of the question because it wasn't at all painful for her to recall her death, being as quick and peaceful as it was, but it took Rosie even longer to ask Lizzie.

_"A bad man killed me."_

Rosie had already expected this. There were visible signs on Lizzie that told her that the young woman had died a violent death.

That was something Rosie had come to notice a long time ago; a common occurrence in people who died suddenly, or violently.

One of her great grandsons had been shot and killed in the American civil war. When Rosie came across him in the In-between, he still had a bloody gunshot hole in the middle of his chest from his last fight. He walked around with it as if it had always been a part of him, like a birthmark. She had stared openly at the grisly wound, doing a sharp double-take as he shuffled aimlessly past her on his way to the horizon.

Naturally, people who either died young, violently, or without warning, usually always had unfinished business, but she had come to realize that most of them still bore their scars from their deaths, particularly the ones with violent deaths. It took her even longer to realize that just like with everything else pertaining to a soul's appearance, they could alter themselves and make their scars go away.

Now, the common occurrence that Rosie had noticed, was that most of them were actually aware they could change their appearances, but have just _chosen not to_. At first, Rosie thought they were walking around with gaping wounds, burned flesh, and mutilated limbs because they didn't know how to make them go away. There were a few times when Rosie would stop one of these traveling souls and offer to teach them because their blue faces and slit throats were too much to look at and her caring nature was too hard to ignore, but that was how she discovered most of them already knew how, but had chosen not to.

It was something she just couldn't understand. More often than not, she would come across a newly deceased who had chosen to keep their scars and she would ask them " _Why?_ ".

Because surely, if one had died horribly, they wouldn't want any visible reminders of their painful death...right?

Apparently, it was a remembrance thing. It was something about violent/sudden deaths being extremely disorienting, enough to a point of total memory loss, and remembering something as bad as their own death was better than not remembering anything at all.

Or sometimes, they kept their scars because they were directly related to the soul's unfinished business and it was sometimes easy to lose one's self purpose in the In-between. The scars acted as a reminder, a reminder for what still needed to be done.

Rosie quickly figured it was something she would never fully understand since she was blessed with a peaceful death, but it never ceased to remind her of how much her death had been a true privilege, especially when she was faced with someone who hadn't been so lucky.

Like Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was one of those souls who chose to keep their scars.

She never directly tells Rosie how she died, and Rosie never pushes the matter. Once Lizzie had confirmed she had died in one of the most tragic types of violent death there were -  _murder_ \- Rosie was too afraid of the answer. The scorch marks on the ends of her nightgown and the finger-shaped bruises on her neck didn't paint a pretty picture in Rosie's head.

Lizzie never had to say the words, but the constant, melancholy look she sometimes had on her face as she mourned over a stolen innocence, and the bright flames that reflected off the glossy surface of her green eyes, were more than enough for Rosie to come to her own conclusions.

And those conclusions horrified her.

Her friend had died painfully. She died in pure terror and agony. Suffered all the way up to the last moments of her young life before having it prematurely snuffed out by a wicked monster. Lizzie had died alone, confused, scared, and thoroughly abused.

And because of that, Rosie cried.

Not in front of Lizzie though. She didn't want to make the girl feel even more humiliated, even more violated by the painful truth. No, Rosie just quietly excused herself before walking away from the pond, leaving Lizzie behind to watch over their siblings. She walked for miles, she walked for days. She walked until she knew the pond was half a continent away before falling to her knees and sobbing her aching heart out. She sobbed, she screamed, she cursed, and she banged her small fists against the hard ground at the tragic unfairness of it all.

She sobbed until her eyes were dry and screamed until her voice was gone. All for Elizabeth.

But  _not_  out of pity,  _never_  out of pity, but because she knew Lizzie never cried for herself. She had seen her own death and the face of the monster who killed her far too many times in her head. Lizzie's body and soul had become too numb for her to cry.

So Rosie did it for her. She cried harder than she had ever cried in her entire existence, even harder than she did in the wake of her brother's drowning when he had left her sitting atop that frozen pond after it had just swallowed him up, leaving her alone and traumatized for life. Indeed, she had cried harder than that.

And if the young woman had ever caught on to that fact when Rosie finally returned to her, pale-faced and puffy-eyed with a hoarse voice and scratched up hands, then she never had the heart to say anything about it.

~O~

"They're fighting again."

"They're  _always_  fighting. What else is new?"

"Yes, but don't you see how it has changed? It's more playful now."

"Maybe, but they're still  _fighting_. I don't know why you keep trying to read between the lines when there's nothing there."

"Have a little faith,  _Rose_. There's definitely more to it than that. Be a little more imaginative, won't you?"

"Whatever you say,  _Liz_."

"Do you not see what's going on? He's already giving into her. Isn't that how it always goes? They start off having a normal, pleasant conversation, but then it somehow turns into pointless bickering, and then after a few harsh words and exchanges, he let's her have her way? Well, they've finally cut out the middleman. He just does whatever she says now,  _and_  he does it with almost no complaint."

"Oh don't sound so proud of yourself. Really, it's not that big of a deal, you know," Rosie smirked. "She has green eyes.  _Of course_  he's going to do whatever she says."

Lizzie couldn't help but laugh at that. "And what does  _that_  have to do with anything?"

"My brother has always been a sucker for green eyes. He had the biggest crush on this girl named Matilda when he was sixteen. She had these really big, pretty green eyes. Not nearly as vibrant as your's or Alice's, but enough to have Jack following her around like a lost puppy. I felt so bad when she rejected him because she thought he was too immature. I mean, she was completely right, but she was too shallow and snobby to realize that there was much more to him than that."

"Well I think this is more than just a silly, childhood crush."

"Of course it is," Rosie rolled her eyes. "But those two are so pigheaded. It'll be well into the thirtieth century before they realize what's between them."

Lizzie let out an exaggerated, woeful sigh as she laid back against the small dock of Jack's pond. "I'm afraid you might be right, my little friend."

As a comfortable silence fell over them, Rosie set aside the thin book she had been idly flipping through and laid back against the dock so both of them were staring up at the endless expanse of blue and white hanging high above them. Lizzie allowed her mind to wander aimlessly as her clover eyes traced out the different shapes that made up the fluffy clouds. She was feeling blissfully content these days, her mind successfully distracted from all the ill memories and emotions that used to constantly haunt her. Having Rosie by her side offered a peaceful reprieve from the flat, listless afterlife she used to lead before stumbling across that lonely little pond, several lifetimes ago.

"What's that book about?" Rosie asked suddenly, turning her head and nodding towards the open book laying across Lizzie's stomach.

Lizzie propped herself up on her elbows with a soft grunt and picked up the book. She closed it wordlessly and turned the cover towards Rosie, revealing an all blue front with a small white rabbit in the center.

"It's one of Lewis Carroll's poem books," She said, flipping through the pages. "It has some of his best works in it."

"It looks a little worn," Rosie noted as she pointed towards the fringed edges and slightly yellowed pages.

"Well I should think so. I found it in a dusty old trunk almost four centuries ago."

"You've kept it all these years?"

"Of course."

Naturally, looking at the baby blue book in her hands made Rosie think about Lizzie's sister. The strange little girl who befriended the Easter Bunny when she was just barely out of toddlerhood. The poor little girl who watched her family burn. Who survived ten years of madness behind padded walls. Who lived in poverty and filth during the Industrial Revolution. Who used her Wonderland as a tool to explore her mind, and with it, conquered her demons and defeated the monster who plagued her most cherished memories. Who became a powerful spirit. Who became a guardian. And who each and everyday, charmed Rosie's beloved brother deeper and deeper into a sense of blinding fascination, comfort, and happiness.

Though Rosie had never met her, she felt a deep fondness for Alice. She had come to care strongly for the younger Liddell sister as Rosie watched her from afar, and she knew Lizzie felt exactly the same for Jack.

She truly hoped that one day, they could all finally meet.

"I've memorized all his works," Lizzie almost whispered as she gently traced her thumb against the smooth title etched along the spine of the book. "His tales may not entirely be about my sister, but he viewed the world in many the same ways Alice did. Perhaps if I ever come to fully understand the bizarre mind that created such wonderful tales, I can be one step closer to finally understanding Alice because I fear I still haven't even come close yet."

Rosie watched her silently for a moment, suddenly feeling sentimental and oh-so grateful that Elizabeth had come into her afterlife.

"Could you teach them to me?"

She looked at her and smiled. "Of course."

Rosie returned it readily with a bright one of her own as Lizzie gently patted the spot next to her on the dock, inviting Rosie to come in closer.

"We'll start with my favorite."

Rosie only nodded as she pulled herself on to her hands and knees and slowly crawled over to where Lizzie was sitting on the end of dock with her book in her hands and her feet in the water. The English girl softly cleared her throat as she opened the blue book halfway, and began to read.

_"A boat, beneath a sunny sky_   
_Lingering onward dreamily_   
_In an evening of July_

_Children three that nestle near,_   
_Eager eye and willing ear,_   
_Pleased a simple tale to hear"_

Rosie curled closer into Lizzie's side before laying her head on the older girl's lap, using it like a pillow. As she moved around to get more comfortable, she was briefly reminded of those loving memories of when her and her mother used to do something similar when Rosie was first learning how to read, and then again when Rosie repeated the memory with her eldest daughter, who, coincidentally, had been named after Rosie's mother.

The warm images in her head made her bury her face into Lizzie's lap and smile.

_"Long has paled that sunny sky;_   
_Echoes fade and memories die;_   
_Autumn frosts have slain July._

_Still she haunts me, phantomwise,_   
_Alice moving under skies_   
_Never seen by waking eyes."_

Lizzie shifted slightly herself to better accommodate her small friend as she continued to recite the whimsical poem without missing a single beat. She hardly even needed to look down at the elegant words scrawled across the ivory pages to know what line to speak next.

As Rosie listened, she looked down into the pool below, idly watching the scene within it unfold. Jack and Alice were currently standing in the same exact spot her and Lizzie were laying, but in a vastly different world. The pond below their feet was completely frozen over, the sun reflecting brilliantly off the flawless, glass-like surface. She marveled silently to herself at the sight of Alice gracefully hopping off the dock and walking confidently across the frozen pond to the very center before turning back around and attempting to coax Jack into doing the same. Uncertainty was written blatantly across his pale face, but with one look into Alice's encouraging, and uncharacteristically gently eyes, and he found himself unable to resist her beckoning calls. He stepped on to the pond.

_"Children yet, the tale to hear,_   
_Eager eye and willing ear,_   
_Lovingly shall nestle near."_

It was then that Rosie felt her eyes begin to water. She covertly turned away from the window and sneaked a peek at the girl still reading her favorite poem, her eyes firmly glued on to the worn pages in her hands.

Oh how unbelievably lucky she was to have Elizabeth in her afterlife. Rosie could no longer remember a time where she wasn't by her friend's side, nor did she want to. She didn't want to think about how lonely she had truly been without even realizing it. It gave her an odd sense of vertigo.

Instead, she chose to focus on the present.

_"In a Wonderland they lie,_   
_Dreaming as the days go by,_   
_Dreaming as the summers die;"_

After all, just because Jack and Alice didn't always get along so well (though they were remarkably getting better), doesn't mean they had to be the same way. There was nothing wrong with having a little company while waiting to be reunited with your beloved sibling.

Nothing wrong with that at all.

_"Ever drifting down the stream_   
_Lingering in the golden gleam_   
_Life, what is it but a dream?"_

With her head still resting in Elizabeth's lap, Rosie listened to the soft, accented voice of her friend as she recited poem after poem by heart. She spoke the old words tenderly like they were a sweet lullaby while gently running her fingers through Rosie's mousy brown hair with her free hand, reminiscent of a time when they were both truly young, innocent, and willfully free.

Rosie slowly allowed her eyes to slide shut as she enthralled herself in the warm, familiar sensation that suddenly washed over her.

For the first time in so very long, Rosie felt what it was like to be someone's little sister again.

~O~

_Hear me sing, "Swim to me_   
_Swim to me, let me enfold you"_   
_Here I am, here I am_   
_Waiting to hold you_

_This Mortal Coil ~ Song To The Siren_

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Finally done! I really hope all this made sense, especially the concept of the In-between. Like I said, I got that from the movie "The Lovely Bones". If you watch it, you'll get a better idea of what kind of world Rosie and Lizzie live in now. I've seen the movie and read the book and they're both amazing. I definitely recommend them.
> 
> The poem in this story is definitely not mine. I suck at poetry. The poem is called "Life is but a Dream". It's an acrostic poem that spells out Alice's full name, Alice Pleasance Liddell. I thought making it Lizzie's favorite would be appropriate, if not a little bit clever.
> 
> I've been working on this one-shot idea for a long time, so please, PLEASE make sure you let me know if you enjoyed it or not. Like I said, I wasn't getting much feedback on FanFiction. Nothing makes a writer happier than feedback, especially when they worked their fingers to the bone to make sure their creation is perfect! Much love to you all!


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